The Branham300
The Branham300 is the definitive listing
of Canada's top public and private ICT companies. We rank companies by revenues,
with the exception of the Up and Coming companies; this list is based on our
assessment of innovation and long-term promise.

The 2018 Edition of the Branham300
consists of the following major listings:

TheBranham300 lists are a snapshot of the companies surveyed, taken at the conclusion of the fiscal year end of the calendar year before the list is published. That means the 2018 edition of the Branham300 is based on 2017 fiscal year-end results.

Canada's
ICT Industry: seven consecutive years of growth

$105.3 billion in total Top 250 revenue

9.6% year-over-year
growth, a substantial increase from last year's 5.7%

73% of the
Top 250 companies grew their revenue

54%
achieved double- or triple-digit growth

BCE holds the number one spot
The 2016 edition of the Branham300 saw
BCE supplant BlackBerry as Canada's number one provider of technology products and services, and BCE holds the lead position again this year. We once called BCE and its competitors telecoms, but that term is now far too limited: BCE is now a wireless, data service and multi-faceted ICT provider. And, even though Branham Group excludes the company's media, wireline and voice revenue as irrelevant to our ranking, its revenue grew 8% year over year.

That is a slower growth rate than the
15% we calculated for fiscal 2015, but BCE still continues to impress.

Canada's multi-faceted communications and
ICT providers had another good year. All eight generated revenue increases in
the categories we track, although SaskTel's growth was nominal. The growth
leaders were Shaw (44%), MTS (17%) and Rogers (13%).

A note about MTS: the acquisition of the
company by BCE took place after its fiscal year end, so it is still a
standalone entity in terms of the 2017 edition of our lists.

Tough times continue for BlackBerry
BlackBerry's fiscal 2016 generated a revenue decline of 33%. The company's fiscal year end is early in the calendar year, and unfortunately its struggles continued throughout the remainder of 2016 as it worked to transition to a software-focussed business and released phones running Android and made by an OEM.

Results by region

These four provinces represent:
96% of
the Top 250 companies 98% of Top
250 revenues

Overall revenue figures also repeated the trends seen last year.

Province

2015 revenue (billions)

2016 revenue (billions)

Growth (%)

Ontario

$41.48

$45.94

10.8

Quebec

$32.42

$34.96

7.8

B.C.

$15.27

$15.87

3.9

Alberta

$5.34

$6.53

22.3

Biggest growth: Alberta shows the largest growth of the top 4 provinces, although this is mainly due to the addition of UrtheCast to the Top 250 list. The satellite and geospatial data company, based in Vancouver, earned $112 million in fiscal 2016.

Ontario generated a significant
year-over-year change: in fiscal 2015 its growth was moderate at 0.9%; the jump to 10.8% this year is impressive. Again, the addition of some heavy-hitters — Pivot Technology Solutions with $1.95 billion in revenue, for example — account for much of this growth.

Sector Performance

The Top 250 is divided into the industry's
four major sectors:

Software: The Software sector generated 16.7% of
the Top 250 revenue and accounted for 37% of Top 250 companies. This is almost unchanged from last year, when the numbers were 18.5% and 37%.

BlackBerry retained its first-place
ranking in the category, but only barely: its $2.86 billion in fiscal 2016
revenue just edged out the $2.82 billion earned by Constellation Software.

X Service Providers: Once again, the x Service Provider
category (which includes, for example, Internet Service Providers and
Application Service Providers) generated by far the most revenue, 46.2% of the total, while only containing 5.6% of the companies.

BCE again led the group, with earnings
of $15.2 billion, excluding media, wireline and voice.

ICT Professional Service: The sector saw little change; its 36% share of the Top 250 companies is almost the same as the 37% last year, and its share of revenue came in at 22.2% compared to 21.5% in fiscal 2015.

CGI was again the flagship for overall
services revenue, and its $10.7 billion in earnings is a 4% increase compared to the previous year.

ICT Hardware and Infrastructure: This sector declined again this year.
In fiscal 2015, Hardware revenue dropped to $15.8 billion, down from $22.3 billion in 2014. For fiscal 2016, the sector's performance declined again, to $15.6 billion.

The sector accounts for 14.8% of the Top
250 revenue. Celestica is again Hardware champ, posting revenue growth of 7%.

Branham Group made some significant changes this year to the list of multinational companies tracked.
Companies new to the list this year include Apple, Facebook, Dell and the two companies HP created when it divided its business.

Because of that, comparisons to last year's multinational results are less useful.

We estimate that the Top 25 Multinationals operating in Canada generated $73.4 billion in revenue in this country in fiscal 2016.

Notable growth performers include Amazon and Alphabet, which respectively earned increases of 31.7% and 24.7%. The big standout in terms of Canadian revenue was Nokia, which significantly increased both its worldwide revenue and the percentage of that revenue allocated to Canada. We estimate the company generated $1.2 billion in Canadian earnings.

With the Top 25 Up
and Comers, Branham Group recognizes promising young companies at the beginning
of their successes. It is the only Branham300 list not based on revenue.

Ontario holds the most
companies on the Up and Comers list with 68% of firms. We were pleased to
recognize innovation in the Atlantic region with 16% representation, a large
increase from 4% last year.

The Movers and
Shakers list recognizes the companies which climbed the most spots on the Top
250 over the year.

In 2015, the 25 Movers and Shakers climbed a total of 624 spots. This year that total was less at 475. The best climbers on the 2016 list were:
Syncordia Technologies and Healthcare Solutions, up 66 spotsspots
Spectra7 Microsystems, up 38 spots
AcuityAds, up 30 spots
theScore, up 28 spots.

The big story again this year is the
total revenue of the 25 Movers and Shakers.
2014 $325.4 million
2015 $893 million
2016 $1.2 billion

This year, the
average growth was 6,620%. That is clearly an outlier result. It is driven by the
remarkable performance of one Branham300 newcomer: Goldmoney. Founded in 2015,
the fintech start-up generated revenue growth of 96,073%.

Removing this
outlying performance creates a more standard growth rate of 230%. At one time,
Branham Group analysed the Hardware sector with and without BlackBerry's
results, as that company threw off an understanding of the overall sector. That
happened this year with Goldmoney's massive fintech growth.

Fiscal 2016: a growth year

Branham Group was pleased to discover
that the ICT industry in Canada set yet another revenue record. A total of $105.3
billion in revenue and growth of 9.6% is remarkable.

Branham Group validates its data in a number of ways.
One of those is by analyzing results against Statistics Canada's data. The
following table compares the total revenue of the Top 250 Branham300 companies
against the total for Canada's ICT sector as reported by Statistics Canada. This
analysis extends only to 2014, the most recent StatsCan data available.

Year

StatisticsCanada

Top 250

% Top 250 vs.Statistics Canada

2007

133.44

64.4

48

2008

138.27

76

55

2009

138.87

71.3

51

2010

143.82

73.9

51

2011

150.27

82.6

55

2012

155.72

83

53

2013

158.79

85

54

2014

169.03

90.9

54

Average

53

Revenue in
billions Canadian

The companies on Branham's Top 250 list
represent less than 1% of the 36,000 firms in Canada but account for an average
of 53% of the country's total ICT revenue.

The variation between the figures over eight years
is only +/- 7% (low of 48, high of 55).

These two facts indicate Branham300 data is an
accurate assessment of Canada's technology sector and that the Top 250
companies included on Branham Group's annual list truly represent the top
performers in Canada's technology sector.

Because of that, the growth displayed by
the Top 250 indicates that the overall ICT industry in Canada is healthy.

Those top performers delivered
impressive results in fiscal 2016: 9.6% year-over-year growth, almost double
the 5.7% from the year previous.

Part of the increase is attributable to
the companies we used to call telecoms: BCE, Telus, Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco,
Videotron, SaskTel and MTS. The eight generated average growth of 11.6% on
large revenues, and account for 45% of the total Top 250 revenue.

Also notable this year were a number of
large players that are new to the list. Beyond Goldmoney, these include:

Pivot Technology Solutions, revenue of $1.94
billion

Tucows, $251.5 million

Pure Technologies, $115 million

Urthecast, $112 million

ISC, $88 million

Much of the Branham300 process is about
jockeying for position. Which firms made the cut, which is number one and how
many places did different companies move? We have entire lists devoted to those
races.

But if you put aside the specific
changes and the competition for rank, what the Branham300 shows is that the
Canadian tech industry is strong in a business sense and deep in its technical
ability and innovation. That is the only way our companies could deliver such
significant revenue growth.

Total revenue of $105.3 billion is
remarkable, and the 250 Canadian ICT companies on our list should be very proud
of that accomplishment.